The trade commission offices were exactly what she had expected.
Old building. Good bones. The specific quality of institutional architecture that had been built to communicate permanence and had succeeded — heavy stone, high ceilings, corridors that echoed with the accumulated weight of every transaction that had ever been conducted inside them.
Elara walked through the entrance at the third bell exactly.
Not a minute early. Not a minute late.
The delegation behind her: Mira with the contract documentation in precise order. Petra with the correspondence file. Dimitri with the bag. Caius at the back, unhurried, carrying nothing that looked significant.
The system was on her shoulder. Nobody could see it. It watched everything.
She was Lian Mei.
